


wicked games, up in flames

by illinois_e



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), M/M, Past Abuse, Porn With Plot, Recreational Drug Use, Unhealthy Relationships, there's actually much more plot than porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 01:14:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16671979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illinois_e/pseuds/illinois_e
Summary: [and you in my life is like sipping on straight chlorine]





	wicked games, up in flames

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably the most self indulgent thing ive ever written, but i was having a really bad crisis of sinusitis and i just wanted to write something for myself for once. write the fanfic you want to see in the world and all that.
> 
> i'll try to explain the au in the ending notes in case it's too confusing for anyone. it probably is. i wasnt thinking straight when i wrote this.
> 
> title from tennis court by lorde and synopsis from chlorine by twenty one pilots.

Kevin has spent an awful time in his life trying to replace people he could not even hope to forget.

He was nine years old when his mom died, and he tried to replace her by diving headfirst into hockey, which she loved and, by proxy, so did he. He tried to replace her with his newly found out father, Wymack — _the name is David, boy. And anyway, it's dad for you_ —, with his growing passion for all old, broken and historical things. Mostly, he tried to replace her with Riko and his solid presence at Kevin’s side all the time.

Eleven years later, it was Riko he had to replace. And he did that well—or so he thought. He replaced him with Neil’s courage and Andrew’s stability, with Nicky’s bad jokes and Aaron’s unveiled scorn, with Sweetie’s ice cream and cracker dust, with more and more and more hockey until his muscles cried at him to stop.

Looking back at it, he should’ve known that he couldn’t have lasted more than a year without Riko, not when he spent his other twenty ones by his side, telling him every shameful secret, everything he could not keep to himself. It didn’t matter how hard Andrew and Neil tried to hold him down every time he almost drowned himself with vodka and then tried to press on his phone the numbers he could remember even when dead, how they tried to make Kevin see that the chalice of Riko’s good actions had its bottom full of poison all the time.

It didn’t matter because Kevin already knew all of these things, all the reasons why not, all the reasons he shouldn’t. None of them seemed strong enough to keep him apart from Riko, not for more than that one year.

Maybe time could really heal everything; even a broken hand.

He still remembered it clearly. Andrew and Neil drunk on wine and on each other, Nicky trying to flirt hopelessly with the bartender, Aaron ignoring the music and texting his girlfriend. Kevin, feeling the scar on his hand itch with the loud bass, detoured to the bathroom, fished his phone from his jean's pocket and sent a message.

Half and hour later, he had his feet dangling around water on a pool — _their_ pool, inside the city's long closed water park — hoping that no one noticed he was gone, hoping the message had been read, hoping he wasn't doing something stupid, even if he knew he was, even if he knew he shouldn't. Hoping and hoping and hoping. His phone started ringing—Andrew's special ringtone. Kevin pretended not to hear.

He was thinking too loud to hear the steps, always certain, always sure, like a man that knows everywhere is his home. But there was still nothing in the world that could make him not turn his head to the direction of that voice, dripping like liquid honey, venomous antifreeze, calling Kevin to him, singing to the pit of his stomach, blissfully putting an end to the slumber of his desire.

“Kevin?” 

 

* * *

 

Neil’s foot kept pressing against his thigh, trying to get his attention. Kevin was pretending to be too engrossed on all the zombie killing on the video game to answer him. Neil hated to feel like he was bothering the ones he loved, and he was likely to leave Kevin alone when he noticed that he was being ignored for a reason.

On his pocket, his phone started vibrating. Neil’s foot stopped, reached higher, just above Kevin’s phone. “It’s ringing.”

“It’s just a text,” Kevin said, as if he wasn’t the type of person to read a text as soon as he received it. What if it was an accident, or if someone needed him, or the crazy ass teacher of _Colonialism, Nationalism and Independence in Latin America II_ suddenly changed the subject of their midterm exam _again_?

Neil wasn't convinced, as Kevin knew he wouldn't be. “Then pause the game and read it.”

“There's no need. It's just David,” he said, ignoring the unspoken rule by which he should call his dad _dad_ and not act like someone who doesn't make enough effort to reconnect after eleven years only imagining how his father's face looked like. Still, he had a good father, and that was more than anyone of them had. “I bet it's just a reminder to buy groceries.”

Neil bended his leg, tucking himself more against Andrew's side and away from Kevin. Andrew, who looked at Kevin with eyes that knew that Wymack was currently working, screaming himself off trying to put their local high school hockey team at least through the semifinals, and that would not get his eyes out of his kids to remind Kevin to buy groceries, of all things.

In a way, they all knew, but if Kevin wanted to delude himself, he was free to do it. They were five people with too many secrets to try and pry on each other's lives.

Kevin's phone buzzed once more before stopping altogether. He made an undisguised effort to lose the game as quickly as possible and, throwing the controller at Nicky's lap, headed for the door.

“I should just buy those things before I forget them… See you all tomorrow?”

Aaron scoffed. “As if we don't see each other even when we don't want to. And by the way,” he asked, turning around. “To which market are you going?”

Kevin's mind was split in between wanting to just turn his back at them and leave and wanting to tell Aaron to fuck himself. “Why do you wanna know that?”

“Because it doesn't look like you're going to any market or buy any groceries, but if you think—”

“Aaron,” Andrew said, cutting his twin in the middle. His fingers twirled themselves on the curls of Neil's red hair, but his voice was far from soft. “Leave him alone.”

Kevin didn't stay to see the rest. He let his feet carry him off from the twins and Nicky's basement, Aaron's _he keeps lying to us_ flowing in the air between them, Neil's eyes following the slope of his shoulders until he disappeared at the other side of the door.

 

* * *

 

There were no groceries in the trunk when Kevin parked in his car in front of one of the tallest residential buildings in the city. Everybody knew him there—the doorman, the janitors, all security personnel. Kevin moved from that high walled apartment complex more than a decade ago, but it wasn’t a total, complete change. Some part of him stayed.

Some part of him would always stay wherever Riko was, and Kevin had long acknowledged that.

He stepped in inside the lift and pressed the button for the rooftop, remembering when they were both kids who would press all the buttons just for the fun of seeing the doors opening at every floor. Even the smallest, stupidest things sounded funny, then. Anything that could get his mind away from the fact that his beloved mother was sleeping forever seven feet below the ground, that he didn’t even know the first letter of his father’s name so they could start searching for him, that even if his mother was sure that Tetsuji were the right man to be his godfather, Kevin wasn’t so certain that it was God who had sent him to them.

But Tetsuji came with Riko hiding beside his legs, part of the package, Riko who never snitched Kevin to his uncle when he was crying — because Tetsuji said he wasn’t allowed to —, who let him ride around in his white and blue bicycle until Kevin fell and broke the pedals, who let him paint over his already carefully covered coloring books. And if that was the price, then maybe it was God after all. Maybe. Could it be? Could He take it so freely with one hand to give back with the other? Kevin still hadn’t made his mind about it.

The lift stopped with a soft _beep_ , its doors opening to a spotless light gray hallway with only one door right across it. Three or four years before, he would know if Tetsuji was at home or not by the noise, or the absence of it. Riko took advantage of every second his uncle wasn’t at home to blast the speakers at the highest volume, back when they were sixteen and pretending to be rebels. Tetsuji hated loud noises — one more proof to six year old Kevin and Riko’s certainty that uncle Tetsuji hated _everything_ — and, eventually, his dislike grew in Riko too.

Now, the apartment was so silent that the lower floor neighbors sometimes wondered if there still lived anyone there.

Kevin knocked on the door and, soon enough, heard the soft footsteps he knew well, first in the bedroom, passing through the hallway and stopping at the living room, in front of the door. Two seconds of silence for Riko to get into his tiptoes to reach the door viewer, and then the door opened.

It was good to pretend that he didn’t miss a breath everytime Riko appeared in front of him. Good and treacherous, but still, better than admitting to himself that his heart could be so weak, so pitiful, to go on into his knees everytime he much heard Riko’s voice on the phone or read the notes written in his perfect japanese calligraphy.

When he left, after Riko broke his hand, he wanted to be better; told himself he could do better, could let the memories of Riko rest buried deep under him. But this? Feeling the pull over him, letting his feet carry him easily, without him even knowing what he was doing before he was standing there, waiting? This was so much easier.

Almost all things in Kevin’s life were hard. Losing his mother, trying to build a normal relationship with his father, getting along with four relatively crazy friends. He just wanted something to be easy, for once. And this was, even if it wasn’t right—he knew it wasn’t, the way he came back to Riko after what happened, knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with the way he forgave everything without Riko not even asking him to.

Riko looked at him up and down as if he couldn’t fathom why Kevin would be there. “What do you want?”

Dressed in black sweatpants and a long cardigan even in the end of summer — he was _always_ cold — Riko didn’t seem as threatening as anyone made him to be. Or maybe he did, and it was just that Kevin was so used to him he didn’t feel afraid anymore. Not all the time, anyway. After almost two decades, the effect was supposed to wear off.

Kevin blinked, noticing how the way Riko reclined against the door blocked his away into the apartment. “You texted me.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did.” Kevin frowned and grabbed his phone, opening the message and turning it so Riko could see. “Here, see? ‘ _i need you’_ ”

Riko looked at the phone as if he could delete the message with just his eyes. “It was sent almost an hour ago.”

Short way of saying _you’re late, Kevin. I don’t need you anymore._

“I’m—” _I’m sorry_ almost escaped through his tongue, but he catched it by the last second. “I was at Andrew’s house, and you know it’s far from here.”

“An hour away?”

“...I may have taken some twenty minutes to get away from there. Or else they would start asking questions, and I—”

Riko smiled, but it wasn’t the smile Kevin liked to see on his face. It was the grimace that he would rip it out with his own hands, if he could. “And you’re scared of what they’ll say if you tell them you’re here.”

“I’m _not_. And anyway, it wasn’t like any of them believed what I said. They know summers are—”

“Mine, yes.” Not like all the other seasons weren’t, either, but summer used to be exclusively Riko’s and he still wasn’t used to sharing it. “They all know, but still you lied.”

Kevin didn't say anything about that. It wasn't like he needed to, like Riko didn't know why he acted that way.

“Well, are you gonna let me in or not?”

Riko blinked slowly before turning inside, leaving the door open for Kevin to follow. He ran his fingers along the walls as he went, before settling himself against the window, arms stretched to the fading yellow sky. The line of his shoulders was too relaxed, his hips angled to the side just enough to break the straight, perfect posture he'd been taught to maintain every second, his lips partly open, eyes looking at the horizon in search of nothing. Something was off; Kevin knew it as much as he knew when something was wrong with himself.

The door closed after him with a soft click, and without any thinking, he was standing by the window too, carried to Riko’s side like a pair of magnets, yin and yang, moon and tide. He wondered if he should say anything or if he should just let Riko lead, as he always did. With every minute that passed down, getting Riko to give him the answers he wanted would become more and more difficult, until his mind found a way to bury whatever was bothering him deep inside and he would just start ignoring Kevin altogether.

Kevin figured he could at least try.

“So… You said you needed me.” He looked at Riko and received no answer, not even a indication that he was heard and acknowledged. Maybe Riko just went directly to the part where he closed himself from anyone. “Are you gonna tell me why or I'll have to guess?”

“It was nothing.”

“You wouldn't have texted me if it was nothing.” _You're already reached out_ , he wanted to say.

Why turn back now?

Riko tsked. “It’s over now. Maybe if you weren’t late.”

Kevin sighed. If Riko wanted to complicate things, he knew better than to fight him. “Fine, then. I’ll leave you to it.”

He wouldn’t leave, not really. It would be dirty to turn his back on Riko like this, when he needed him to stay. That was what he said in the message, wasn’t it? _i need you_. And Kevin, he just wasn’t used to being needed, not admittedly so, to the point where the tiniest crumbs of acknowledgment Riko gave him were enough. At least for now.

(he knew he shouldn’t keep submitting to that, should set some sort of rules or whatever. guidelines for a healthy relationship—did he even knew what a healthy relationship consisted of? but not now. he spent a year away from riko, missing him with every breath he took. he could endure this just a little longer)

“Kevin.” He stopped, two steps separating him from the door, but didn’t turn back, not until he heard the rest. “Come back.”

“Only if you tell me what’s going on.”

“Why can’t you just—” Riko interrupted himself and sighed, defeated. He turned his body sideways, facing Kevin but still leaning against the windowsill. “My uncle just called earlier to _notify me_ that he’s travelling and shouldn’t be back home at least for a week. Which would be great, if it wasn’t for the fact that I hate being alone here.”

Oh.

That wasn’t exactly what Kevin was expecting.

He crossed the distance back to the living room and sat on the sofa, stretching one arm in invitation. Riko came, head high, as if he wasn’t so closed to falling apart moments before that he purposely let Kevin know something was wrong with him, and fit himself into the small space between Kevin and the armrest, legs thrown over Kevin’s lap. The material of his pants was soft under Kevin’s hand as he stroked Riko’s thigh over it, then descended to his ankle, circling it easily with his fingers. He remembered kissing Riko’s smooth feet as one would do to a king.

“I can stay, if you want to. There are enough clothes of mine here that I don’t even need to bother bringing new ones.” His thumb stroked the soft skin stretching over his anklebone. “It's not a problem for me.”

“Whatever. I'm gonna be just fine.” His mouth was pressed against Kevin's arm, muffling his voice. “And I already gulped down a Xanax, as all normal people do. It’s just a matter of time.”

Kevin tsked but didn't say anything. At least Riko was letting Betsy do her job with him. And most americans _did_ already start the day off with a dose of tranquilizers.

He should call his dad later. It was true that their fridge was understocked, and Kevin was supposed to pass by the supermarket and buy groceries by the end of the afternoon, but he wasn't going to leave that apartment anytime soon. Riko said he was going to be fine, he didn't say Kevin shouldn't stay—that was as good as proof that he was needed there as he was going to get.

Without a word, Riko extended his hand, letting it wait, palm up, directly in front of Kevin's chest. Without a word, Kevin let his own hand rest atop of it; his left hand, the scarred one, the one Riko had broken an year and half before.

Riko traced the scars with the tip of his fingers, so lightly as if they weren't yet healed, as if they still hurt — and they did, but only in memory — with every movement. He brought the hand close to his eyes, examined every detail of it, and then bowed his head to kiss it, like a servant kisses the hand of his lord in gratefulness. Riko’s lips were warm and soft and pleasant. Lovelike.

Their fingers intertwined together, Kevin’s hand covered Riko’s one to the point where it almost disappeared. He was so small that sometimes Kevin wondered how someone apparently so harmless could bring on so much destruction on his wake.

“So, do you wanna watch something?” Kevin suggested, reaching for the controller with the arm that Riko wasn’t holding. “There’s gotta be some good movie on TV today. Or maybe we could just pick up whatever is new on Netflix. Hey, you wanna watch _Sabrina_? She’s just like you, you know. Small and dangerous.”

“Fuck off.” Riko threw one leg over Kevin, getting himself on his lap, facing him. “I don’t wanna watch any stupid show, and before you ask, I don’t wanna play video games either.”

“I was _not_ going to ask,” Kevin answered. He really wasn’t—he knew well enough that Riko got tired of playing after the third match or so. “So… Now what?”

Riko rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I think you’re being this dense just to annoy me.”

“Hey—” He started, but Riko shut him up pressing their mouths together, then nudging Kevin’s lips with his tongue until he opened up. Riko never learned how to kiss slowly; Kevin was trying to teach him, but he could be a slow learner when he wished so. His hand settled themselves atop his hipbones, steading him as Riko shifted closer, pressing their bodies together.

He broke off the kiss with a small bite to Kevin’s bottom lip—old habits die hard. “Now _this_.”

“Are you sure? You always said the meds make you dizzy, and I don’t want to—”

“I’m sure.”

That didn’t gave Kevin enough peace of mind. “Yeah. And I’m being serious. An hour ago you texted me because you were feeling so bad you _willingly_ medicated yourself, and know you want to fuck? That’s totally fine by me, but I just want to be a hundred percent sure _before_.”

“Okay, listen,” Riko said, with that _calm before the storm_ tone of voice that meant he would be quite close to becoming angry if he wasn't riding a Xanax-induced high. “I'm fully conscious of my actions, and I'm giving my consent to this. Do you get it? Because I know what's it's like not giving consent, but I'm sure a hell giving it right now. Stop being an anxious trainwreck or I'll force a pill down _your_ throat. Can we keep going?”

Now _that_ was the type of answer Kevin grew used to. Instead of answering back and saying something that could kill the mood which was already hanging by a thread, he held Riko by the back of his neck and went back to kissing him until their lips were red and shiny with saliva. Kevin wanted to kiss him whole, to mark every stretch of skin, but Riko’s tongue was inside his mouth again, demanding, until his mind felt fuzzy as the blood started to flow somewhere else.

Riko lips moved to his jaw, then his neck, then lower, his fingers deftly riding Kevin of his shirt so that he could reach the wide expanse of his chest. His teeth closed around the flesh just below Kevin's nipple, leaving small indentations that would eventually give way to purple bruises that Kevin could touch and remember.

Kevin let his head rest against the wall and relaxed, concentrating exclusively in the feeling of Riko’s warm lips and wet tongue against his skin until they reached his jeans. There was a time when Riko would shudder just thinking about getting his head close to someone else's groin, even if it was Kevin, whom he trusted almost completely. Kevin knew that he wasn't still a hundred percent confident on it, but as long as he wasn't held down, Riko could spend a lot of time with Kevin's cock inside his mouth solely because he learned to love the feeling of it. He teased with his tongue until Kevin was squirming, hands trapped under his thighs to prevent any accidents, before taking him almost whole, and using his hand to reach what his mouth couldn't. With the other, he pressed down on Kevin's hip, preventing him from moving with more than small, shallow thrusts.

When the pit of his belly started tightening, Kevin pulled Riko up to his lap again. They got rid of whatever clothes they still had by that point until there was only skin over skin; Kevin's hand splayed on top of Riko’s stomach, light brown on yellow. Riko’s torso was covered in scars: some small, some big, some inflicted by his uncle, some by himself. They covered him like a map to some place dark and twisted that Kevin was still, with great difficulty, trying to reach. Most of the times he didn't believe he could ever encounter it—sometimes, like that moment, he still found within himself a flicker of hope.

He fumbled with one hand beneath the cushions until he found the lube they left there for _situations_ like that one. Riko’s breath was warm on his ear as he said. “The curtains are still open. You know the neighbors from the next building can see us.” He let out the smallest gasp as Kevin entered him with two fingers.

“So what? Let them see. You’re beautiful.”

Riko looked at him like he was torn between fond and exasperated “Kevin, not now— Oh, _fuck._ ”

“I’m sorry,” Kevin said, twisting his fingers inside him again before joining a third one. “I didn’t hear that.”

“Shut up. Your mushy act distracted me.” He answered, squeezing Kevin’s shoulders to the point he knew there would be ten identical half moon shaped marks when he looked at the mirror. “Fuck you, I’m ready, just—- Fuck me already.”

Kevin didn't need to be told twice. He held Riko’s hip with one hand to prevent him from going down all the way at once, and with the other he guided himself inside him, slowly, until Riko was sitting flush across his thighs. It didn't matter how many times they did that; Kevin would always feel overwhelmed thinking that they were there, after everything; that they flew back to each other like it was written in some hidden book of prophecies.

If it was good or bad, he could not say.

He didn't even feel the moment where Riko bit his shoulder to keep himself from making a sound, just focusing at keeping still until he felt it—two taps against his left arm. Green signal. They started moving together: Riko riding Kevin slowly at first, then picking up speed, and Kevin trying to accompany his tempo with his thrusts. His hand sneaked in between their bodies and closed in a tight fist around Riko’s cock, jerking him off with a drop of lube. Riko muffled his moans in the juncture between Kevin's neck and shoulder, unwilling to let any sound escape.

(they should find a way to deal with that, later. it didn't feel fair to kevin that he could feel riko falling apart for him but could not hear it)

One of his hands held Riko by the nape and brought their heads close together, forehead against forehead. The sight of Riko’s half lidded eyes, pleasure-glazed, his bitten mouth now slightly open, his cheeks red from effort and from desire, was enough to bring Kevin to the edge. He gave four more thrusts before spilling his come inside Riko with a loud groan as he held him down on his cock.

In the post-orgasm haze, the hand that was jerking Riko off almost came to a stop before Riko whined in his ear. Kevin tried to maintain a constant rhythm, but it took less than a minute until Riko came with a small moan between their stomachs, sagging against Kevin as if he had run until his legs gave away under him.

Kevin stroked Riko’s back as they came back to their breathing, feeling the places where the skin was slightly raised by scar tissue. He felt that his body was simultaneously made of lead and whatever clouds were made of. If Riko wasn't still on top of him there was a probability that he would just float away to God knows where. As things were, he used whatever was left of his energy to move his head just enough to kiss Riko’s temple.

“Mushy.” He heard somewhere along his neck. Kevin couldn't help but laugh.

 

* * *

 

They went to bed after Kevin complained enough times that the neighbours were bound to pass by the window and see them both naked.

(“so what? didn't you say i was beautiful?”

“yeah, but maybe there's a kid, and they should see your beauty _clothed_ )

Kevin was nibbling on a granola bar he miraculously found by the bedside table—sex always left his stomach rumbling. Riko was sitting beside him, smoking a joint. That was an habit he'd picked up in their year apart, and Kevin didn't know how to ask him to stop without acknowledging they both had changed in ways that might become permanent. Kevin had four new friends and a well of newly found courage. Riko smoked weed, refused the hockey scholarship at the uni and changed their lifelong plan of majoring in History together for a place in art school.

Riko could never admit that things changed for better, that maybe they really needed time away from each other, maybe they needed to rethink themselves as the entity _rikoandkevin_ and started seeing themselves as separate beings. Riko could never, but Kevin did. Even if it pained him.

He patted around the bed until he found his phone, and sent his father a very belated text telling him he wouldn't come home that day, nor the next, and could you _please_ buy the groceries? thank you. It was, Riko said, an odd way to talk to a father. But then, he wasn't one to talk, since he'd never had a father himself.

Kevin had just dropped the phone close to him when it started ringing. The screen flashed Andrew's name in bright lights, like a Vegas’ neon sign Kevin was desperately pretending not to see.

By the fifth ring, Riko took the joint out of his mouth and turned his head to him. “I thought friends were supposed to answer each other's calls.”

“Not always.” The ringing stopped, then started again. Kevin's fingers itched to answer it, just to see if he would surprise himself, but the better part of him didn't want to hear the accusing undertone on Andrew's voice when he learned Kevin wasn't leaving Riko’s house anytime soon. “Sometimes your friend's gonna annoy you and everything you need to do is not engage with him.”

“And Andrew would annoy you if he knew you were with me.”

Kevin sighed. “Yeah. I mean, he doesn't like you. Justifiably.”

Riko nodded and brought the joint back to his lips. Kevin put his phone on silent mode and turned it screen down so he couldn't see it flashing.

(but he didn't turn off the phone, nor did he reject the calls. was that what they called small victories?)

“You should answer him.”

“No, I shouldn't.”

“Just so he won't think I killed you and am trying to get rid of the body. That's a thing you probably told your friends I am capable of doing.”

“What? _No._ ”

“You _always_ tell the bad stories about me.”

“I tell the stories worth telling about.”

Riko closed his eyes and scoffed, but he didn't say anything else. That was also new—how he didn't fight anymore, or at least not always, how he didn’t need to have the last word in every fight; how he could close his eyes and seemingly ignore what he didn't want to hear.

“Well, I should probably figure out a way that you can all meet without causing any property damage.” He quickly sent Andrew a message saying he was fine and would call him later. “I know you and Neil already know each other, but I was thinking about a real meet up.”

“Hmmm.” Riko threw the butt of his joint in the ashtray and closed his eyes. “I thought they had sworn me to death.”

They did. More specifically, Neil did, but that meant Andrew would follow, and whenever Andrew went, Aaron and Nicky went too.

“Well, they're my friends and you're my boyfriend, so y'all gotta find a way to coexist in the same space. At least for an hour or something.”

Kevin had a slightly intuition that what he was asking for was almost impossible, but there wasn't any harm in trying. With Andrew involved, it probably would, though. Not any _permanent_ harm in trying.

“If I were you, I'd be organizing my agenda to fit my friends and the boyfriend they hate in different periods of the day.”

“As if you don't hate them either.”

Riko shrugged.

“At least try,” Kevin asked, absently minded stroking Riko’s knee. “For me?”

Manipulation was Riko’s expertise, not his. The most Kevin could do was ineffective emotional blackmail.

Riko looked at Kevin with the same emotionless expression he wore most of time, but his eyes grew soft — or as soft as they could be — in seconds. “One try. Teach them how to be civil.”

Kevin kissed Riko’s knee and smiled. “Thank you.”

“Don't get your hopes up, Kevin. It’s not going to work” he said, the corners of his mouth curved in something only Kevin would recognize as the tiniest smile in the world.

Being loathsome and lovely in equal measure is probably a talent. Somewhere. Riko was half exhausting and half exhilarating. He lay down on the bed besides Kevin, forehead against forehead, and tossed his phone to the other side of the bedroom when the screen flashed up with a call from Neil, laughing.

Kevin knew he would not — could not — have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> ("being loathsome and lovely in equal measure is probably a talent. somewhere." is a quote i took from [the shitty horoscopes](http://musterni-illustrates.tumblr.com))
> 
> so.
> 
> there's no exy, so i can pretend tetsuji didnt went full time obsessed and riko didnt turn out so damaged + damaging. he still broke kevin hand for something i didnt have the mind to think about, and they spent one year apart, where riko left hockey and changed majors so he wouldn't need to see kevin cause he regreted what he did but he didnt know how to apologize. and then kevin reached out to him cause they're both weak for each other. i guess that covers it.
> 
> (do i regret this? dude i dont think so)


End file.
